WhatsApp Channel vs. Community vs. Groups: What’s the Difference

Mehvish Mushtaq is a computer engineer by degree. Her love for Android and gadgets led her to develop the first Android app for Kashmir. Known as Dial Kashmir, she won the prestigious Nari Shakti award from the President of India. She has been writing about technology for 6+ years and her favorite categories include how-to guides, explainers, tips and tricks for Android, iOS/iPadOS, social media, and web apps.

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WhatsApp Channel vs. Community vs. Groups: The Basic Difference

If you want to interact with many people simultaneously, that’s where WhatsApp groups come into the picture. Groups offermulti-user conversations. All members of a group can interact with one another.

Community is nothing but a collection of related WhatsApp groups. If you are an admin of multiple similar groups, you can group them in a community. Let’s say you have a group for each class in your school. A community offers a space to put such multiple groups in one place. It becomes easier for the community creator to find and manage similar groups.

WhatsApp channels, on the other hand, offer aone-to-many messaging service. That is, only the creator of a channel can send messages to the channel. Learn how touse WhatsApp channels.

Tip: Know thedifference between WhatsApp community and groups

Management and Interaction

Note:An admin can own multiple channels, groups, or communities.

Where to Find Them on WhatsApp

Groups are present in the main chat listof WhatsApp. There’s no separate section for them.

On the other hand, you have aseparate Community tabwhere you can see all your communities and the groups within a community. When you receive a message in any of the community groups, it will also show on the main Chats tabs.

Like communities,channels also get a dedicated section. You will find them in the Updates tab below the Status. However, messages received in WhatsApp channels don’t appear in the Chats tab. You will have to access them from the Updates tab itself.

Privacy Features in a WhatsApp Group, Community, and Channel

Privacy is one major area where groups and WhatsApp channels differ. In a group, in addition to the admins,each member can view the phone numbers of all the other group members. Even though a member may not know to whom the number belongs, he/she can see the numbers.

On the other hand,WhatsApp channel admin or its followers cannot see other users. Both can only see the total number of followers.

In the case of communities,members can see other members within a group and not outside a group. However, members cannot see the participants of the Announcements group. Only the admin can see them.

Privacy of Admins

Other Differences Between a WhatsApp Channel, Group, or a Community

Notifications

WhatsApp channels are muted by default. You need to unmute a channel if you want to receive its notifications. You cannot set custom tones for channels.

On the other hand, while communities and groups aren’t muted by default, you can mute them. You can also set custom notification tones for them.

Life Span of Messages

In both groups and communities in WhatsApp, messages will stay until they are deleted manually by the admin or other members. On the other hand, messages sent in channels will be deleted automatically after 30 days.

Disappearing Messages

The ability to send disappearing messages is available for both groups and communities in WhatsApp. However, you will not find the feature in the channels. That’s because the messages will be deleted within 30 days.

Automatic Addition or Invitation

Anyone who knows your WhatsApp number can add you to WhatsApp groups or communities. Thankfully, WhatsApp now has the feature to control who can add you to groups. On the other hand, no one can automatically add you to a WhatsApp channel. You need to join channels using links manually.

Calling Functionality

Groups support both voice and video calls in WhatsApp. However, you can add only up to 32 users in group video calls. Channels in WhatsApp do not support calling functionality. In the case of WhatsApp communities, you can have calls within each group. You can also have calls with other members of the newly introduced General group.

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Last updated on 26 August, 2024

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